This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
Karina Gould Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to establish spending limits for third parties and political parties during a defined period before the election period of a general election held on a day fixed under that Act. It also establishes measures to increase transparency regarding the participation of third parties in the electoral process. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) adds reporting requirements for third parties engaging in partisan activities, partisan advertising, and election surveys to the reporting requirements for third parties engaging in election advertising;
(b) creates an obligation for third parties to open a separate bank account for expenses related to the matters referred to in paragraph (a); and
(c) creates an obligation for political parties and third parties to identify themselves in partisan advertising during the defined period before the election period.
The enactment also amends the Act to implement measures to reduce barriers to participation and increase accessibility. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) establishes a Register of Future Electors in which Canadian citizens 14 to 17 years of age may consent to be included;
(b) broadens the application of accommodation measures to all persons with a disability, irrespective of its nature;
(c) creates a financial incentive for registered parties and candidates to take steps to accommodate persons with a disability during an election period;
(d) amends some of the rules regarding the treatment of candidates’ expenses, including the rules related to childcare expenses, expenses related to the care of a person with a disability and litigation expenses;
(e) amends the rules regarding the treatment of nomination contestants’ and leadership contestants’ litigation expenses and personal expenses;
(f) allows Canadian Forces electors access to several methods of voting, while also adopting measures to ensure the integrity of the vote;
(g) removes limitations on public education and information activities conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer;
(h) removes two limitations on voting by non-resident electors: the requirement that they have been residing outside Canada for less than five consecutive years and the requirement that they intend to return to Canada to resume residence in the future; and
(i) extends voting hours on advance polling days.
The enactment also amends the Act to modernize voting services, facilitate enforcement and improve various aspects of the administration of elections and of political financing. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) removes the assignment of specific responsibilities set out in the Act to specific election officers by creating a generic category of election officer to whom all those responsibilities may be assigned;
(b) limits election periods to a maximum of 50 days;
(c) removes administrative barriers in order to facilitate the hiring of election officers;
(d) authorizes the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information about permanent residents and foreign nationals for the purpose of updating the Register of Electors;
(e) removes the prohibition on the Chief Electoral Officer authorizing the notice of confirmation of registration (commonly known as a “voter information card”) as identification;
(f) replaces, in the context of voter identification, the option of attestation for residence with an option of vouching for identity and residence;
(g) removes the requirement for electors’ signatures during advance polls, changes procedures for the closing of advance polls and allows for counting ballots from advance polls one hour before the regular polls close;
(h) replaces the right or obligation to take an oath with a right or obligation to make a solemn declaration, and streamlines the various declarations that electors may have the right or obligation to make under specific circumstances;
(i) relocates the Commissioner of Canada Elections to within the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, and provides that the Commissioner is to be appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer, after consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions, for a non-renewable term of 10 years;
(j) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the authority to impose administrative monetary penalties for contraventions of provisions of Parts 16, 17 and 18 of the Act and certain other provisions of the Act;
(k) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the authority to lay charges;
(l) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the power to apply for a court order requiring testimony or a written return;
(m) clarifies offences relating to
(i) the publishing of false statements,
(ii) participation by non-Canadians in elections, including inducing electors to vote or refrain from voting, and
(iii) impersonation; and
(n) implements a number of measures to harmonize and streamline political financing monitoring and reporting.
The enactment also amends the Act to provide for certain requirements with regard to the protection of personal information for registered parties, eligible parties and political parties that are applying to become registered parties, including the obligation for the party to adopt a policy for the protection of personal information and to publish it on its Internet site.
The enactment also amends the Parliament of Canada Act to prevent the calling of a by-election when a vacancy in the House of Commons occurs within nine months before the day fixed for a general election under the Canada Elections Act.
It also amends the Public Service Employment Act to clarify that the maximum period of employment of casual workers in the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer — 165 working days in one calendar year — applies to those who are appointed by the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
Finally, the enactment contains transitional provisions, makes consequential amendments to other Acts and repeals the Special Voting Rules.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
In terms of the accessibility of polling locations, do you find there's been an improvement from the Fair Elections Act versus the new elections legislation in Bill C-76?
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you, Madame Chair.
Mr. LeClair, I'm actually on the Métis Nation website and have come across an article from 2015 regarding the Fair Elections Act that the former government had brought in place. In that article, it says:
The Conservative federal government's Fair Elections Act disallows Canadians from using the voter information cards they receive in the mail as proof of identity at polling stations. It also ended the practice of “vouching” in which voters with acceptable ID could attest to identity and addresses of those who lacked it.
I'm wondering if you can comment on the new legislation that came through in Bill C-76 to increase the accessibility of polling locations and to ensure that culturally appropriate electoral services were available. Can you speak to the changes made between that 2015 piece of legislation and the 2019 version and how they have affected the turnout among Métis people?
Bill C-76 has not changed that, but it's a very good point. If you vote in person, there's no latitude in the act. I can prescribe the documents, but you have to provide the documents to vote. That's in-person voting. If you vote by mail, the law gives me the authority to establish the means of identification that I deem to be sufficient. I do have on the vote-by-mail system a greater flexibility.
We don't necessarily want a system where one way of voting has a certain degree of integrity and the other one has it to a lesser degree.
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Okay.
You've spoken a couple of times now on the identification requirements for those who are doing their mail-in ballots. Is that not discretionary? I mean, what are the identification requirements? Bill C-76 came through, and I believe some of that made those identification requirements discretionary.
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Chair, in December 2018 the Liberals passed Bill C-76. This included provisions to prevent foreign interference in Canadian society.
Does the government believe that Joyce Murray's actions have violated this portion of the act?
I can't speak to the pre-pre-writ period, but for the period for which there was reporting, we are currently reviewing the reports. There were 147 third parties that were registered. There may be more that needed to register, and we're following up on that. Most of the reports have been filed. If you go on our website, you will see.... I think it's about 115 of the reports that are currently filed, and we will be doing a review of that.
I can say that the rules around foreign funding of third parties have been reinforced and clarified. I also said, when we examined Bill C-76 in the last Parliament, that the regime was reinforced considerably but was not an airtight regime. The regime does not trace the money back to individual contributors. That is the choice of Parliament. There are charter issues around going into a much tighter regime, and—
Stéphane Perrault Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am pleased to be before the committee for the first time during the 43rd Parliament.
Today, the committee is studying Elections Canada's 2019-2020 supplementary estimates (B). These estimates are related to the implementation of Bill C-50 and Bill C-76, which were passed during the previous Parliament.
This is also an opportunity for me to talk about the conduct of the general election and current priorities for the agency.
It is important to point out that my office is funded by two separate authorities: an annual voted appropriation and an ongoing statutory authority. The annual appropriation covers the salaries of all indeterminate positions at Elections Canada and at the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
The statutory authority covers all other expenditures, including administrative expenses, such as office space and IT infrastructure, and the cost related to the preparation and conduct of an election. The statutory authority is important both to the independence of my office and to its ability to conduct electoral events that may occur at any time. Planned spending under the statutory authority is included in the estimates for reasons of transparency.
The supplementary estimates (B) for 2019-2020 include an increase of $2.3 million for the implementation of Bill C-50 and Bill C-76. While most of the changes required by those two bills can be administered with existing resources, the agency needs additional capacity for the administration of the new political financing rules, the register of future electors and the administrative monetary penalties regime of the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
In addition, the supplementary estimates provide for a transfer of $2 million from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer for the transfer of the Commissioner of Canada Elections in Bill C-76.
On February 18, my report on the 43rd general election was tabled in the House of Commons. This report, which is the first in a series of three post-election reports, provides a factual description of how the election was administered and identifies issues that I think require further analysis.
While not without its challenges—and I will come back to this in a moment—the administration of the election was overall a success. In particular, the quality of the data in the national register of electors allowed for the most complete and accurate preliminary lists of electors for any federal election on record.
The quality of the lists impacts the overall delivery of the election. It ensures, first, that electors are assigned to the right polling location, second, that they receive the basic information they need on their voter information card and, third, that candidates and parties have reliable data for their campaigns.
Another positive aspect of the election was the conduct of the advance polls. You may recall that this was a major challenge in 2015, when voters experienced significant and systemic lineups across the country. This was the result of an ongoing trend, as electors have been increasingly opting to vote at advance polls.
Important steps were taken in 2019 to address this problem, including a streamlining of procedures at advance polls, a 25% increase in the number of advance polling divisions and a legislated 50% increase of service hours for each of the four advance polling days. No major lineups were reported in 2019, despite an increase in voter participation of 1.2 million voters, or 32%, at those polls.
A third area worth mentioning relates to cybersecurity and disinformation, which had been top of mind in preparing for the election. However, we experienced no cybersecurity threats of significance beyond those faced daily by any federal government organization.
Elections Canada also monitored social and traditional media for inaccurate information about the electoral process, and on some occasions contacted social media platforms or websites to bring inaccurate information or occasionally even inauthentic accounts to their attention. None of these instances were concerning in terms of their scope.
That said, I believe that the measures we took concerning cybersecurity and disinformation were important to protect the electoral process and reassure Canadians.
While the election went well overall as I indicated earlier, we did encounter a number of challenges. The delivery of a federal election is a major logistical event that relies on a very large temporary workforce. For this election, returning officers aimed at recruiting some 250,000 poll workers but were able to recruit only 214,000. They also faced problems as over 10,000 of these, having been recruited and trained, did not show up for work, which was a marked increase in the numbers from previous elections. In a number of locations, this resulted in polling locations not being opened on time. I'll come back to this in my next report, my retrospective report on the election. The issue of recruitment and retention is a priority for us as we prepare for the next election, but in the longer term, we will also need to look at ways to operate with a reduced workforce.
A second challenge for the election was the fact that polling day and a number of advance polling days coincided with Jewish high holy days. I made it a priority for returning officers to engage with the Jewish community in their ridings and to offer alternative options to vote either at an Elections Canada local office, at the returning office, or at special voting kiosks set up within the community at times and locations that were convenient for those members of the community. I intend to do some consultations this spring on the issue of conflicts between religious holidays and a fixed election date. This may result in recommendations to Parliament in the fall to try to avoid similar conflicts moving forward or, at the very least, to make sure they are resolved earlier in the electoral cycle.
Finally, there were an unusual number of quite severe weather incidents during the election, in particular in Manitoba, where extensive and prolonged power outages forced evacuations in a number of communities. We provided alternative or adjusted voting options for electors from the affected communities as well as for emergency workers. We are currently looking at preparing ourselves for more frequent weather-related events so that we can quickly respond to them.
As we are closing the general election, we are taking time to analyze these and a number of other aspects of the election. Our findings will be included in a second post-election report, which I hope to publish in September, early in the fall. This retrospective report will provide an analysis of the administration of the election informed by a variety of data, including stakeholder feedback and public opinion research.
As part of my statutory mandate, a third and final report will be provided to the Speaker later in the fall, which will provide recommendations for improvements to the Canada Elections Act. I note that these reports are referred automatically to this committee for review. In that context, next month I will be releasing three discussion papers to engage experts and stakeholders, including political parties. The papers will address various aspects of the regime governing political communications in a federal election, notably the rules we currently have in the Canada Elections Act, the impact of social media platforms and concerns that have been raised about the privacy rights of electors in the digital age. Discussions around those topics could lead to some of the recommendations in my report.
As the general election resulted in a minority Parliament, our immediate priority is to ensure that the agency is positioned to deliver an election that could occur at any time. At a minimum, this means revising contracts, replenishing supplies and engaging with return officers so that contingency plans are in place.
In the current context, it also means engaging with government experts on the possible impacts of COVID-19—and we are doing that—on an election and developing some mitigation strategies. We will also be looking at improvements to our services and systems, but the extent of the changes will of course depend on the timing of the next general election.
Madam Chair, I look forward to working with this committee, and I'm happy to answer any questions the members may have.
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Mr. Speaker, the government says our democracy is threatened by foreign interference, but it looks like the bigger threat could be from the government.
The Liberals violated the Shawcross doctrine. They put Unifor on the media bailout fund. They introduced Bill C-76, limiting ads and free speech before elections. They tried controlling the House in Motion No. 6. They rigged the rules for their own benefit in the leaders' debates. Their Internet report is proposing what could be the largest restriction on free speech in Canadian history.
Last week, we found out the Liberals spent $430,000 of public money on partisan social media in the last election. Who is the bigger threat to Canadian democracy?
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have seen a jaw-dropping erosion of rights under the Liberal government, for example, Bill C-76, which rigged election rules in the Liberals' favour, and the $600-million bailout of selected struggling newspapers.
Now the Liberals have embraced the shocking recommendation to license media companies, an Orwellian tool used by ruthless authoritarian governments. Are the Liberals so desperate to cling to power they would emulate dystopian societies in Russia, China, North Korea and Iran?
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
You may recall that I first met you at a meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence, when I was replacing a colleague. At that time, I was impressed by how you promoted your ideas, but above all by your understanding of the issues. Obviously, you knew how to advocate for your interests and argue.
When I joined the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in September—I was the last member appointed—you impressed me once again. We were studying Bill C-76, and I had the impression that I was taking a course on filibustering. You certainly promote and debate your ideas with conviction, and you deserve full credit for it.
As Ms. Sahota said, we learn a great deal from observing our more experienced colleagues and from never losing sight of our objectives and the interests of our constituents.
Thank you.
Karina Gould LiberalMinister of Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, unlike the party opposite, we have full confidence in our officers of Parliament. We have full confidence in Elections Canada and the professional men and women who administer elections. In fact, unlike the party opposite and its so-called fair elections act, we will not make it harder for Canadians to vote. We will not make it harder for Canadians to get information on how to vote. In fact, in Bill C-76 we empowered Elections Canada to do such a thing.
We hope Conservatives also think it is a good thing that Canadians have the right information on where and how to vote, because that matters for Canadian democracy.
Karina Gould LiberalMinister of Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, unlike the Conservative Party, we will not muzzle scientists; we will not muzzle public servants, and we will certainly not muzzle Elections Canada. In fact, in Bill C-76, we empowered Elections Canada to talk to Canadians about the importance of voting. Unlike Conservatives, we are not afraid of more Canadians voting. I hope they will join us in supporting Elections Canada's good work in reaching out to vulnerable populations, reaching out to groups that do not vote and making sure that in this election more Canadians than ever vote.
Karina Gould LiberalMinister of Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, we are hearing the same old lines from the same old Conservative Party. What it did when it was in government is that it limited the rights of Canadians to vote. It made it more difficult for our most vulnerable to vote, and it made it even more difficult for Elections Canada to talk to Canadians about voting.
We changed that with Bill C-76. It is unfortunate that the Conservatives keep attacking our democratic institutions. They have gone after the CEO of Elections Canada; they have gone after the commissioner, and they have gone after the debates commissioner. That is unacceptable.
Here on this side, we are standing up for democracy.
Karina Gould LiberalMinister of Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, let us look at the facts. What our government did is bring in Bill C-76, which actually strengthens the rules around advertising and activities for third parties in the lead-up to the election. We brought in a pre-writ spending period, which will begin on June 30. This is the first time in Canadian history that this is being done to make sure that there is a fair and level playing field when it comes to our elections.
I suspect you're asking about potential legislation in Singapore. You would be well served to look at the Elections Modernization Act that Canada put in place—